Crowded public transport reason for Covid-19 surge in Maharashtra cities

Crowded public transport is one of the major causes of the recent Covid-19 surge in Maharashtra cities including the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR), where people depend largely on suburban trains and buses.

This was observed by the Central team that visited Maharashtra on March 1, 2 to study the recent surge of coronavirus in the state.

In Mumbai-MMR, the suburban trains of the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) were opened for the general public from February 1 with restricted timings, resulting in overcrowding.

Currently, more than 35 lakh people are using the trains on a daily basis, as against the pre-pandemic figures of 70 to 80 lakh.

On average, over the last 10 days, the new daily cases in the MMR are roughly 2,000.

Around a fortnight ago, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had deployed 300 marshals inside the local trains to ensure that commuters wear masks.

Read | 'Partial lockdown' in Maharashtra's Aurangabad between March 11 and April 4

Crowds have also been seen in public transport in big towns like Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Amravati. Buses of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation have also seen a large number of commuters.

“The exact cause of the surge is not known since laxity of Covid behaviour is not limited to the state. The possible factors are Covid-inappropriate behaviour due to lack of fear of disease, pandemic fatigue, miss outs and super spreaders, and enhanced aggregation due to recent gram panchayat elections, marriage season, opening of schools, crowded public transport,” the report added.

It further points out that the health machinery also may have become lax after cases came down in the months following September.

Some amongst the doctor fraternity, especially private, may not be counselling patients for testing or following protocols, dismissing it as flu. District/State-wise participative plan, engaging the community may yield better results rather than knee-jerk reactions. “Revenue machinery needs to take full charge,” it said.